Within Our Own Shadow
by DezoPenguin
Summary: Vivio and Lutecia thought they were going on a simple date at the Marine Garden, but their happy time together is shattered by the advent of violence seeking revenge for Lutecia's past as a Shadow.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: This story is one of the ViCia/Shadows series created by RadiantBeam, and falls just after her story "Daddy's Little Girl" in the sequence. This is the first time I've written a story in this series featuring the main couple rather than being NanoFate sidestories or background matters about the Shadows. I'd like to note that for forms of address, honorifics and so on, I've tried to follow what RadiantBeam uses in her fics in this series since I'm working within that series._

~X X X~

"I still can't believe we can hear this," Willy Vespa said. "I mean, shouldn't she have better security on her--"

Rollin Windom held up his hand, cutting the younger man off. Vespa was still so much in so many ways the fresh-faced boy he seemed to be.

_"Oh, that's great! I've wanted to go to that place for years! Nove told me all about it."_ The young girl's voice was bright and chirpy over the sensory tap.

"This isn't her Device," Windom explained. "This is the house system, her home link—and she lives with her mother."

"So?"

_"Oh, but wait. Nanoha-mama will never let me stay overnight with you, not now that we're dating."_

"So, if she installs a bunch of security on it, her mother's going to notice and ask questions. Instant blown cover."

"Yeah, but what about operational protocol? I mean, an open line?"

_"Actually,"_ a deeper, sultrier female voice answered the first, _"I have that covered. Well, presuming that Nanoha considers Cinque Nakajima a suitable chaperone."_

_"Cinque?"_

_"She's stationed in Harbor City for the next two weeks; I...prevailed on her to put you up for the night."_

"Do you really think that she'd use it for anything sensitive?"

"She's giving away her location for tomorrow."

_"There's a story behind that, isn't there, Cia?"_

_"Maaaybe...and I'll tell you tomorrow."_

_"I just wish Fate-mama was home. She's lots easier to convince."_

_"It builds character."_

"She's making a date with her girlfriend. Even someone as twisted as her wouldn't combine _that_ with an op."

Vespa grinned at him. It made the seventeen-year-old's face look even more boyish, Windom thought.

It made the subject of the grin seem all the more incongruous, even ironic.

"That's what she thinks, at least."

"Right," Windom agreed with a nod. "Let's talk to Jim. We've got less than a day to set this up."

~X X X~

The giant Marine Garden amusement complex had been the setting for the denouement of the Mariage terrorist incident six years ago. Large parts of the park had been devastated by the battles, but the rebuilding efforts had been complete and comprehensive so that no scars from the past lingered to remind pleasure-seekers of the day that violence had exploded among them.

Lutecia Alphine had been involved in that incident, though strictly on the fringes. She'd still been confined to exile on the Mau Gram penal colony then, but the violet-haired summoner had helped the investigation by researching into Ancient Belkan references to the Mariage and Ixpellia.

The one who'd recruited her help back then was, ironically, the girl who now walked beside her. Lutecia and Vivio Takamachi had carried out a long-distance friendship, a friendship that had only deepened when Lutecia had been granted an early release not more than a couple of months after the end of the Mariage incident. They'd been best friends for years, despite the fact that Vivio was four years younger. Now, though, they'd taken that friendship up another step, to romance and dating.

As always, it had been Vivio who'd pushed things to the next level. It wasn't that Lutecia didn't want it, or even that she was oblivious to Vivio's own feelings, just that as always she let Vivio be the one to jump the emotional gaps between them, even though she was waiting on the other side to happily catch her. The age difference was one problem; it would be so easy for her to lead Vivio one way or another if she really wanted to that Lutecia wanted to reassure herself that whatever was happening was what Vivio herself wanted. And there were other reasons, besides.

Secrets.

Shadows.

She hadn't been able to talk about those things before—maybe it wasn't even a friend's place to hear them. But Vivio wasn't a friend any more. Lutecia had given way, let her cross that last gap.

And now what? Could she hold Vivio close, kiss her, touch her, all the while knowing that Vivio didn't know who and what she was? While lying to her? And if she told the truth, what then? Would Vivio hate her for what she was?

_That isn't even the most important question_, Lutecia realized. Her real fear wasn't for the loss to herself, but what it would cost Vivio—her innocent purity, maybe even her faith in what she'd been raised to believe. Vivio's dedication as a mage cadet for the TSAB was to become a heroine like her mothers, part of the next generation of champions defending the dimensions. Like she thought Lutecia was. _Broken ideals can never be repaired._

"Cia? Hey, Cia!" A hand waved in front of Lutecia's face.

"Wh-what?"

"Cia, are you okay?" Vivio asked, looking worried.

"Yes, I am."

"Are you sure? You were staring off into space like you were a thousand miles away, and you looked...upset. I didn't do anything, did I?"

"What? No, no, of course you didn't."

"If you don't want to do this..." Vivio began. "I mean, Marine Garden is kind of a little-kid thing to do for a date."

"Vivio, I was the one who invited you!" Lutecia protested.

"Yeah, but isn't that just because you thought I'd think it was fun?" Vivio still had the worried look. "Wouldn't you rather do something more grown-up, Cia?" she asked.

"What I want," Lutecia said, looking directly into Vivio's heterochromatic eyes, "is to spend the day with my girlfriend, going on rides and playing games and seeing the sea-life shows and eating junk food and just having fun in all kinds of different ways. And what's not grown-up about two people doing fun things together, anyway? Look around us; there's all kinds of couples."

"Yeah, but most of them are my age."

"Most isn't all." Lutecia tapped Vivio on the end of her nose. "Why are you so worried, anyway? Our age difference never bothered you before."

"We were just friends then. Now we're dating. It's different."

"It's only four years," Lutecia lied shamelessly. "Just think, when you're ninety-two, I'll be ninety-six. That's nothing at all."

"That's about how old I'll be before Nanoha-mama thinks I'm ready to do anything more than kissing."

Lutecia chuckled and ruffled Vivio's hair.

"That's a completely different problem and you know it."

"I just wish I could get that growth spurt. I even _look_ like a kid next to you."

She did have a point. Lutecia had matured into a tall, elegant woman with a long sweep of hair that fell to the back of her knees, a sleek and seductive figure. She'd already taken steps to try and minimize the apparent gap between herself and Vivio's coltish appearance, pulling her hair back in a ponytail with a pink ribbon that matched her T-shirt and adding a blue skirt whose pleats helped to conceal the curve of her thighs and hips. She'd even gone with socks and cross-trainers instead of hose and pumps, although given the amount of walking she anticipated doing it was probably a sensible decision anyway.

But the bottom line was, she was finished growing and Vivio wasn't. Heck, thanks to magic, they knew what Vivio was going to look like as an adult, which no doubt made it all the more frustrating for her.

Lutecia slipped an arm around the blonde's shoulders and pulled her close.

"You shouldn't worry about it so much, Vivio. I love you, and that's all that matters. And as for your age, it's kind of nice when the biggest problem you can thing of will go away on its own, right?"

Vivio pouted, biting at her lower lip. "But what if--"

Lutecia always thought the expression made her girlfriend look utterly kissable, so she took the opportunity to do exactly that. Vivio's lips were soft and warm, and the sensation sent a thrill through her, making her tingle all the way down to her toes.

"No buts. Now come on; we're almost to the front of the line."

They bought their tickets and downloaded park maps and attraction guides to their Devices for easy access. Lutecia started looking over hers, amazed by the variety of rides and attractions.

"What do you want to see first, Vivio?" she asked, bookmarking several interesting ideas and watching them flash on the map. Vivio, however, didn't bother with maps or lists. She just pointed.

"That!"

_That_ was the towering, loop-the-looping, corkscrewing length of Marine Garden's signature attraction, the Riptide. It was an only-five-months-old monster of a roller coaster that doubled the wildness by running on transparent rails and struts so that large portions of it—naturally, the more extreme ones—presented the illusion that the car was hurtling through the air without support.

"Oh, my."

"I can't wait!" Vivio said, grabbing Lutecia's hand and starting to drag her in that direction.

_At least we're doing this _before_ lunch,_ the older girl reflected, _and if worst comes to worst...Vivio can fly._

~X X X~

Windom thought the green-and-aqua Marine Garden security uniform looked lame rather than in any way intimidating, but he figured they probably wanted it that way. After all, as a "security force" its major jobs were spotting pickpockets and reuniting lost four-year-olds with their families, not engaging in combat. Most of them weren't even mages, considering that an ANT was standard with the uniform.

His biggest challenge was going to be somehow keeping himself from thinking the whole thing was a joke. Overconfidence always, always led to screw-ups. It wasn't professional, and members of the Black Raptors were always professional.

Even when it was personal.

"Hey, guys!" he said cheerily as he walked into security control. The two guards on duty, one of each sex, looked up at his entry.

"What gives? The next shift's not supposed to be up for another hour," the woman said.

Windom grinned sheepishly.

"Sorry about that. First day."

"Yeah, we've all been there. You know where you're supposed to be?"

"Actually, not really..."

"Typical. They give you more advice on what not to say to the customers than they do on what you're actually supposed to do on the job. Here, lemme check the duty roster. What's your name?" She turned back to the console and pulled up a screen.

"Doesn't really matter."

"Eh?"

**"Scarlet Shooter."**

Crimson balls of light formed in the palms of each hand and zapped the two guards before they could even turn around. Windom was ready for a follow-up, but neither guard moved; they clearly hadn't been mages and without Barrier Jackets his spell had knocked them out cold. Windom dragged them to the corner of the room, removed their weapons and comm terminals, tied their hands and feet with zip-strips, and taped their mouths. With them taken care of, he then locked the control room door, seated himself at the console, and deftly instructed it to perform a number of functions that were outside the ordinary use of the security system. He then took his own Storage Device and opened a communication link, audio only.

"R-4 to R-1."

"R-1. Status?"

"I'm in control. Automatic alarms are turned off, and the secmen's communications all run through the main system, so they're not getting any messages out. I can't do a jamming field or barrier on the park, though; this system isn't set up like a milspec high-security installation, for obvious reasons. Random people in the crowd will still be able to call the authorities."

"It's a chance we'll have to take. Have you got a visual on the target?"

"Yes. She's in the line for the Riptide. I've marked her location and am transmitting her position."

"Good. Timeframe?"

"Fifty-three minutes until the next change of shift here."

"That should be more than enough time."

Jim Avalon couldn't keep the vicious eagerness out of his voice on the last line, Windom reflected. That tone was usually confined to defectives, the bloodthirsty types who ended up in merc units because they were too kill-crazy for he regular military, and who rarely lasted long in private service either. He'd never heard it from the ice-cold Avalon before.

Then again, like he'd observed, this was personal, for Jim more than any of them. To the rest of the Raptors, Dan had been a friend, a teammate, a brother-in-arms. But he'd been Jim's younger brother.

Blood always called to blood.

~X X X~

_A/N: An ANT is short for an Autocasting Neo-magical Transmitter, a magic-damage sidearm. More details are available in Chapter III of Stahlkonigin, where I introduced them. The phrase "comm terminal," however, comes from the official manga ViVid, chapter 1._


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Sharp-eyed readers will notice that, apart from the usual "non-Earth-natives named for cars" pattern, the members of the Black Raptors follow a special naming pattern. See if you can figure it out, and I'll give the answer at the end of the story._

~X X X~

"That was incredible!" Vivio squealed happily. "We should go again before we go home."

Lutecia smiled gamely. While Vivio had spent the whole ride on the coaster squealing happily, she'd been more concerned with fighting down the waves of nausea. Just the thought of doing it again made her stomach lurch.

"I guess being an air combat mage lets you get used to pulling all those high-G turns and being dragged upside down and sideways in midair?" she asked dryly.

"Well, maybe a little," Vivio took the question seriously, "but that's under my own power. The neat thing about a roller coaster is that you're being carried along the track by the ride, so you don't have any control. That's why it's a completely different kind of excitement than flying!"

She looked so ridiculously joyous that Lutecia felt happy in spite of her stomach. It really did make her feel all warm and fuzzy when Vivio was having fun; nothing else in her life could give her that feeling.

"It certainly was wild," she admitted.

"Mmn!" Vivio grabbed Lutecia's hands between hers. "Okay, it's your turn to pick something."

"All right." She called up the schedule on Asclepius. "The sea life show starts at 11 and again at 3; we don't want to miss that."

"Definitely not—and I want to see the aquarium walk in the Crystal Valley, too."

"That's right on the way; the sea show is over at the old ruins. I guess all the damage that Subaru, Teana, and the Mariage did to it came in handy for them, since they could build new structures in the damaged areas and use the intact parts for setting and atmosphere. I'll have to mention that to Cinque."

"Yeah, I think Subaru always felt a little bad about how much was destroyed in that battle, even though it was to save people's lives. But since we agree on that, what do you want to do right now?"

"Hmm...how about the Mirage Hall? It looks like a Hall of Mirrors, a haunted house, and an undersea tour all in one."

"Oh, you mean with the illusions of diving in a sunken pirate ship?" Vivio shivered. "It sounds neat, but kind of scary." She then grinned at Lutecia. "You'd better stay close so you can protect me."

Lutecia laughed.

"And so you can work in a few snuggles and 'accidental' groping while pretending to be scared?"

Vivio pouted.

"Aw, you're no fun. I can't even be sneaky around you, Cia."

"Experience," Lutecia drawled. _If you only knew just how sneaky I can be!_ But then again, Vivio wouldn't _want_ to know some of the things she'd done.

"Cia? Are you okay?"

_I can never fool her._

"Just feeling my age," she lied. "It's not just you who worries about that," she added some truth. "Sometimes, I'm afraid that you'll find someone your own age who can better relate to you." Someone who was a better match for her innocence and decency.

Vivio shook her head.

"There's no way that will happen. The only way you're getting rid of me is if you tell me to go."

"Well, that's one thing I'll never do."

Just the thought hurt worse than any of the numerous injuries she'd accrued on mission.

Vivio smiled at her.

"Good!"

"Besides, maybe I want to snuggle close to _you_. After all, ghosts are supposed to be repelled by holy things and you're the only person I know with a church dedicated to her."

"Cia!" Vivio groaned. Lutecia bent over and kissed her on the tip of her nose.

"There, got you back," she giggled.

~X X X~

"R4 to team. Target is heading towards the Mirage Hall. That's one of the secondary strike locations."

"R1. Understood, Your updated data is coming through."

"R2. I have visual on the target." That was the Black Raptors' only female field operative, Cinnamon Altima.

"R3. Tracking from data."

"R1 to team. We're going to take this chance; we can't assume the target will step into the primary location within the timeframe. Take up position and report in when ready."

"Yes, sir," Vespa said eagerly.

"Acknowledged," Altima was more subdued.

Data on Marine Garden had been easy to get; it was freely advertised as a resort, after all. They'd identified several scenarios for their attack based on which attractions Alphine and her date might visit. They were well aware of Alphine's combat capacity and had established a plan.

The date was the only problem, a wild card. The information they'd been able to dig up overnight was sparing. Takamachi Vivio (apparently her family's origin-world put the surname first) was fifteen, a mage cadet with the Air Force and a student at St. Hilde's Academy (implying a Belkan combat style). Unfortunately, with the need to plan the attack itself, the Raptors hadn't been able to obtain her full file as their contacts always took at least a couple of days to deliver that kind of information.

Windom didn't like wild cards. Too damned often they turned out to be jokers in the deck.

~X X X~

_They did too good a job on this!_ Lutecia said to herself. The Mirage Hall moved them through an artificial world of combined reality and illusion in three dimensions, one which combined the beauty of the undersea world with the mystery of the past, and of ghosts and spirits. Once, an illusion of being caught by pirate ghosts had come so suddenly and realistically that she'd reflexively called on combat magic before realizing what was happening and dispelling the summoned energy before launching an attack on the exhibit.

She should have been mortified, or maybe caught up in some angsty chain of thought about how broken she was to be reacting with knee-jerk violence to a theme-park attraction. Lutecia didn't even have a chance to go there, though, because Vivio had broken into gales of laughter on seeing what had happened and her happiness had set Lutecia off as well. Basically, she was having way too much fun with her girlfriend to worry about anything at all.

~X X X~

"R2. I'm in position."

"R3. In position."

"R4. I have you both on camera," Windom confirmed. Between the two of them, they should be able to keep Alphine and her girlfriend under observation and be ready to move in should a follow-up be needed. They hoped it wouldn't be, though. Revenge was more satisfying if taken with one's own hands. That was certainly Avalon's position. It wasn't just enough to kill Lutecia Alphine. He wanted to do it himself.

~X X X~

The art of the sniper, Jim Avalon thought, boiled down to the same maxim as did the real-estate business: location, location, location. Most obviously, a sniper's vantage point had to give a clear view of the target, presenting a makable shot. There was no reason to fire just to hit someone in the leg—or miss completely. It had to be inconspicuous, as a sniper zeroed in on a target was astonishingly vulnerable to ambush or being spotted. And it had to offer an escape route, a way to get out of the kill zone instead of being caught up in the reactions.

Avalon had identified a number of possible points to fire at various target spots from. That was how they'd identified the primary, secondary, and tertiary strike locations, based on his ability to take out the target. For the Mirage Hall, his firing site was a gantry underneath the Riptide, caught up in the struts and catwalks. Part of the structure was enclosed, others exposed, and to get to where he needed to be he had to pass through one of the enclosed areas, where some of the coaster's works were kept out of sight of the public, preserving as much as possible of the magic—as well as shielding them from the elements and providing a more comfortable environment for maintenance.

Where a maintenance worker was, in fact, checking things over.

"Hey, who are you?"

They'd come face-to-face when Avalon was rounding a corner, with no chance to hide or get out of the way. The man was broad-shouldered, with a black beard lightly dusted with gray and a fleshy face and burly build under his aqua jumpsuit that spoke of years' worth of weekends eating fried foods at the local sports bar.

"Maintenance," Avalon said, tugging at the fabric of his own jumpsuit. "I got a call."

"Geez, Shumack screwed up again?" the other man groused. "That's the third time this week he's sent somebody to the wrong place. Guy can't keep his head straight since his divorce went final."

"It hurts to lose someone you love," Avalon agreed. "It claws at your gut until you can't think of anything else, can't keep your head clear unless you do something."

"What was that, man?"

"Nothing, really. Look, I need to get to work." Avalon started to move forward but the bearded man shifted to the side, blocking him.

"Yeah, you do, except that this is my job. Now you go back and talk to Shumack and set his butt straight, get it?"

Avalon nodded.

"Yeah. Yeah, I get it." He half-turned, as if taking the man's instructions, then snapped back, driving the second knuckles of his right hand into the worker's throat. The bearded man gasped and choked, and Avalon seized the man's arm, levered it up behind him, and used it as a fulcrum to spin the fellow around, slamming him head-first into the metal wall. His free hand came up, fisted in the back of the worker's hair, and he beat the man's skull once, twice, three times into the wall.

It took him a couple of minutes to regain himself, to stop the trembling. The man had had to be killed, obviously—he'd seen Avalon's face and since he hadn't been willing to walk away it had been necessary to get him out of the way by force; if he'd been allowed to live he'd have been able to report that face to the authorities. Self-preservation. A necessary act for the mission.

But that didn't explain the rage. The _hate_ that had burst loose the instant he'd decided to kill, the violence rather that cold efficiency with which he'd eliminated the obstacle.

_Control yourself, _he told himself firmly. _Yes, she had to die. She killed Dan, murdered him without a second thought. But you have to stay in control, use the anger instead of being used._

An out-of-control sniper wasn't a sniper at all, just a lunatic banging away at a crowd without caring what the target was. Avalon owed it to his brother to carry out the mission like it _was_ a mission, with all the professionalism he was capable of showing.

He went up a ladder, then up along the catwalk. He was already in his Barrier Jacket underneath the jumpsuit, so he didn't remove the disguise; it was the best camouflage he could find without illusion magic. Avalon crouched and took out the card-shaped plaque that was his Device's standby mode.

"Diving Raptor, set up. Rifle Mode."

It shimmered, and he was holding a staff-like weapon form, with a broad base for a shoulder to brace against.

"Breech open."

A slot opened in the Device's top, and he took a cartridge from a vest pocket and inserted it. Getting a cartridge system installed _sub rosa_ into a Storage Device wasn't easy or cheap, but it was damn well worth it, as he'd proven several times over the past two years. The slot slid closed again.

"Scope."

**"Target Scope."**

A window opened in front of his vision, a close-up view of the target zone. He adjusted Diving Raptor's direction slightly until he had the field of vision he wanted.

"R1, in position."

"Just in time," Windom's voice came, a little testily. "She's almost out."

"Sorry; I had to take care of an inadvertent witness."

_Like she took care of Dan. Just an inadvertent witness brushed aside._

_No! Don't think about that now!_

"They're at the exit," Windom told him.

"All right—there, I have them."

It tore at Avalon's gut to see her laughing and smiling, her face lit up with happiness as she left the Mirage Hall with the blonde girl. That she should be out enjoying herself!

"Mark target."

**"Target locked."**

"Load cartridge."

The snap from within the device told Avalon that the stored magic was ready to be tapped.

"Fire."

**"Snipe Shot."**

~X X X~

"That was fun!" Vivio said. "I'm glad you picked it, Cia. Of cours,e I don't think the planners knew you were going to make yourself part of the entertainment. I thought I was supposed to be the hothead."

"Hey, it's not like I actually cast the spell," Cia protested. "Blowing up large chunks of real estate is a Takamachi's job."

"I'm going to tell Mama you said that," Vivio teased.

"Um...you really don't have to do that..."

Vivio grinned at the way the older girl flinched at the idea.

"_Fate_-mama," she clarified. "She'll think it's funny."

Lutecia grinned back.

"She already likes me."

"Of course she does! You're wonderfully likeable! Like a...a big, purple teddy bear." Enthusiastically, she threw her arms around Lutecia and squeezed. Lutecia chuckled, hugging her back.

"I love you, Vivio."

"I love you t—"

She was interrupted by their devices speaking up.

**"Barrier Jacket: Engage"** said Lutecia's Asclepius.

**"Protection,"** Vivio's own Burning Glory chimed in.

The searing indigo-blue bolt clipped the edge of Vivio's barrier spell, spraying sparks, and struck Lutecia in the head. Something warm and wet sprayed Vivio's face, and the taller girl sagged limply in her arms.

"Cia!" she gasped, lowering her girlfriend to the ground. The phrase _dead weight_ had never seemed so morbidly clear to her before, and the second time she called out it wasn't a gasp, but a full-fledged scream. "_Cia!_"

~X X X~

_A/N: One interesting (well, to me) note about this chapter is that when I submitted it to RadiantBeam for comment, she mentioned that she and Nanya had used the same comparison between flying and roller coasters in "Day in the Life"--with Nanoha _not_ liking them in that story for the same reason that Vivio _does_ like them here. I guess it's either that great minds think alike, or that it's a really obvious comparison. I'll prefer the former assumption, of course!_


	3. Chapter 3

She was breathing.

Panic had consumed the crowd, no surprise when lethal fire rained down into them. They screamed, rushing hither and yon, crashing into each other, more than one colliding with Vivio.

The head wound looked worse than it was, a nasty gash on the upper left side of her forehead running around towards her temple. It was bleeding freely, as head wounds tended to do, and would probably require stitches, but it hadn't penetrated.

A green-and-aqua-clad security officer was shouting into a comm terminal, but apparently getting no response, judging from his increasing frustration. Balloons soared into the air, cut loose by frightened children. Families were torn apart by other people crashing between them, and struggled to reunite. One single shot and the chaos was complete.

They were three steps from a bench and Vivio covered them quickly, realizing that Lutecia was in danger of being trampled. A large man collided with her; she bunched her shoulder and absorbed the blow the same way she would on an athletic field. The panicking crowd was her ally, too, she understood. It was providing cover against the sniper's fire.

"Burning Glory! Backtrack that shot and locate the source!"

**"Yes, mistress!"**

A cacophony of screams and shouts rang in Vivio's ears. A peaceful day, a family outing had been shattered by terror. Ordinary people living ordinary lives had had brutal violence descend among them, and they were terrified.

Lutecia's eyelids fluttered.

"Vi-Vivio?" she mumbled.

"You're going to be all right, Cia," she desperately tried to reassure her girlfriend. _What am I supposed to do?_ Get Lutecia to safely? But where was "safe" when they were under attack? The crowd cover wouldn't last forever. Soon, that _bastard_ would be at it again, raining death down on them, trying to kill Cia!

"Wh-what?"

No, there was only one way to insure Lutecia's safety.

Take out the attacker.

"Do you have it yet?"

**"Trajectory located."**

Vivio settled Lutecia onto the bench. The violet-haired girl was regaining her equilibrium quickly; she clutched weakly at Vivio's arm.

"Vivio...what are you..."

"Stay here, Cia. I'll make sure this guy can't hurt you again." She straightened up. "Burning Glory: set up!"

**"Barrier Jacket: Royal Mode."**

Rainbow light swirled around her as her clothes were replaced by a dark gray catsuit under a "skirt" of armored plates, a midriff-length white jacket, and metal gauntlets. Burning Glory itself changed into its staff form, a three-foot rod gripped in her right fist, its crest shaped like a pointed Belka Kreuz but with the Device's bright blue core at the point where the crossed arms met. She let the Intelligent Device take the lead, its cross-tip swinging towards where it had tracked the shot from, up in the support structures of the Riptide. In the next instant she was in the air, following.

~X X X~

"R4 to R1. Target is injured but not out."

"I know. The damned girlfriend must have an Intelligent Device; its autoguard kicked in and took the edge off the shot before it reached the target, also allowing her Barrier Jacket to fully engage. I can't get a second shot through the crowd."

"R3. I can't see a thing."

"R4. They're not running for cover. It looks like the girlfriend's too upset over the attack to get away."

Avalon grinned. Maybe he was going to get a second chance. The girl was a cadet, after all, not mission-seasoned. Under stress she was apparently acting emotionally.

"Security's trying to call for help, but I've got them blocked—wait, R1, I think the girlfriend's tracking on you."

Avalon's grin grew even more savage as he saw Takamachi rise up out of the crowd.

"R2, R3, as soon as the girl comes after me, move in on the target and finish her."

"What about the girlfriend?"

"I'll keep her busy." And if he was very, very lucky, Alphine might just feel the pain of losing a loved one before she herself was killed.

He slotted another cartridge into Diving Raptor.

"Mark target."

**"Target locked."**

"Load cartridge."

**"Loaded."**

"Anti-air."

**"Tracking Snipe."**

~X X X~

The sniper, Vivio realized at once, wasn't running or trying to make a getaway. He was still there in position, perhaps getting ready to finish the job. Maybe he was a fanatic who didn't care about being caught, only about the mission. Or maybe he had another way out.

Vivio didn't care. He wasn't going to get a second chance. She was going to make sure this animal never had another chance to hurt her Cia! The fact that he was sticking around to let her take him down _right now_ was exactly what she hoped for.

She could have opened fire on him at range, but didn't. For one thing, the Riptide was still carrying dozens of people at high speeds through the coaster run. Damaging the support structures with indiscriminate magic blasts could lead to a horrible disaster. And on another, deeper level, her fury was such that nothing would do but that she beat the sniper into submission with her own hands for trying to kill Lutecia.

Vivio was close enough to make out the sniper as a distinct figure, arms and legs instead of just an aqua-colored dot, when he raised his rifle-shaped Device towards _her_.

**"Round Shield."**

The indigo bolt exploded towards her, but instead of crashing into her shield spell, it turned to avoid it, went around, and took Vivio in the back before she could react with a second defense. Pain seared through her; for a second all she could see was red and she lost concentration on her flight magic, starting to fall. A second later she regained herself, though, and shot off towards the sniper again.

_A barrier-piercing shot!_ She realized, based on how it had nearly taken her down with a single hit. Only the sheer power of her Barrier Jacket, a remnant of the Sankt Kaiser's "Saint's Armor" ability, had enabled her to absorb the shot without defensive magic and stay conscious.

"My turn," she ground out between her teeth as she rapidly closed the distance. The sniper was reloading his Device with a fresh cartridge. Vivio couldn't allow him to get off any additional shots if she could help it; she pointed her staff at him as she rushed in.

**"Radiant Shooter."**

Ten pea-sized rainbow orbs surrounded Burning Glory's crest and spat at the sniper in a rapid-fire stream. He saw the attack coming, spinning the rifle in front of him and raising a Defenser barrier, but the impacts one after another on his spell jarred him, making him step back on the catwalk and fumble the cartridge he was trying to load. It slipped from his fingers, rattling off the metal surface beneath him, falling through one of the slots in the grill-like walkway, and rang twice off lower struts on its way down.

"Revolver Form!"

Burning Glory shifted in her hand, and she was holding the butt of an old-style gun, but with a heavily built-up barrel.

**"Rapid Shot."**

**"Protection."**

A rainbow sphere sprang up around Vivio and a six-bullet burst hammered against her barrier. The attack barely slowed her down; she landed on the gantry in front of the sniper. She pulled the trigger, loading a cartridge as she whipped Burning Glory around in an arc.

**"Defenser."**

The heavy barrel crashed into the indigo barrier, delivering a Belkan-style strike, physical damage enhanced by magic. The sniper went flying back to crash into a strut at the end of the catwalk, stray magic from the shield collapse tearing rips in his jumpsuit to reveal the mottled black-and-gray Barrier Jacket beneath.

She started to charge him, Burning Glory upraised for another blow, when a spell-rune blazed to life beneath her feet and indigo binds clawed at her, fastening around her waist, arms, and legs to chain her in place.

~X X X~

Dazed, Lutecia fought her way back towards full consciousness as the crowds raced in panic around her. Her heart was in her throat at the idea of Vivio flying off to confront the sniper, and that fear, ironically, helped bring her back around faster.

In shock over the attack and angry that someone would try to hurt Lutecia, Vivio was making several tactical blunders. Lutecia supposed that the sniper could have been a random attack—a disgruntled mage angry at society, a domestic terrorist, or for that matter some arch-conservative that just didn't like gay couples—but she strongly doubted it. That had been a high-powered lethal attack from an elite mage, at least A rank, and had targeted her specifically.

No, it was unlikely to be random. And no one wanted to kill Lutecia Alphine, daughter of Megane Alphine, girlfriend of Takamachi Vivio. Well, maybe Vivio's mother Nanoha, but she wouldn't mess around with snipers; she'd take Lutecia on face to face and reduce her to a smear on the—_Focus! The injury's making you wander! _She scanned the crowd, trying to get some awareness of the situation—

_There._

A young man with a shock of unruly blond hair was moving towards her through the panicked park-goers. He was moving with purpose, a spark of order among the chaos that stood out like a sore thumb. Her eyes flicked back to the other side and it was there, too. Not as obvious—the pink-haired woman was shorter and blended better with the crowd than her associate but to Lutecia's trained eye the lack of fear gave her away.

It was a team, then. The sniper had backup. That confirmed her fears; this wasn't some nut, but a deliberate attack on her.

Shadow business.

The TSAB hadn't let Lutecia off the penal colony at Mau Gram early because they were full of forgiveness and light. They'd done it because they wanted someone capable of doing the things she'd done as Jail Scaglietti's minion. Someone would get her hands dirty when need be. Not even her mother—and certainly not Vivio!—knew that Lutecia's true job description was spy, saboteur, and assassin.

_Not now, damn it!_ Her time with Vivio was the only thing in her life that made her feel decent and clean, that reminded her of what it was she was protecting every time she plunged herself into darkness. They had _no right_ to be here now, to violate that last sanctum of hers.

But of course, the darkness didn't care about that. The people in that world didn't respect the boundaries of Lutecia's life any more than she respected theirs.

Lutecia pushed herself to her feet. She wobbled, then nearly fell when someone crashed into her. Her head wound throbbed painfully; she'd probably need medical treatment for a concussion later or risk brain injury. At least her Barrier Jacket was ready, even if Asclepius, as a Boost Device, could actually cast a defensive spell as an autoguard the way an Intelligent Device like Burning Glory could. Explosions of light and sound from the air told her that Vivio had engaged the sniper; Lutecia knew that she needed to get ahold of herself, escape the team on the ground, and get some help to Vivio. Her girlfriend was an amazing young talent, but her experience was strictly on the training field and in the nearly-as-controlled circumstances of a couple of cadet missions. She didn't have real-life experience against the kind of skilled and ruthless tactics that this kind of enemy would employ.

~X X X~

Avalon was reaching much the same conclusion about Takamachi Vivio as Lutecia already knew. She was very powerful, far above the level a team like his own was used to encountering. The way she'd taken his Tracking Snipe hit in her Barrier Jacket alone and the force of her hand-to-hand attack told him that. But she was also inexperienced—and angry—so that her tactics were simply to charge in and try to overwhelm him with that power. It was why she'd blundered right into the trap spell he'd planted during her approach.

The binding had started to decay the instant it had hit her, though, something about her Barrier Jacket making it hard to chain her. Avalon had hoped to use a full-power, armor-piercing shot on her at point-blank range while she was trapped, but realized that it would take a much more powerful mage than he was to hold her in place with a binding spell long enough to get off a charged attack.

He settled for what he could get, hammering her with another stream of Rapid Shot bullets, then shifting his grip on Diving Raptor.

"Bayonet!"

A foot-long energy blade sprouted from the rifle tip as Takamachi tore free and charged him. The catwalk was narrow, and she thought it limited his movements, but he ducked a swipe and swung out over the edge, using the handrail for support, kicked off a beam to give the necessary momentum, and came back in behind her. He landed a quick combination, striking with the bayonet and with the rifle butt. She spun, whipping the gun in a savage arc but he ducked again and slashed across her belly, drawing a grunt of pain. She moved like she had hand-to-hand training, but for whatever reason—rage, nerves—she wasn't using it. Avalon stabbed her again, full-on, driving the blade against her chest and knocking her sprawling.

"Rapid Shot!"

**"Round Shield."** Her defense sprang up before he could pepper her with further attacks, blocking his spell. She pulled the trigger on her Device twice, loading two cartridges even as she got back to her feet.

"Burning Claw!"

**"Defenser Plus!"**

Her body exploded towards him in a corkscrew spin, and all he had time for was to raise his strongest defensive spell and hope. Once, twice, the gun-barrel hammered his barrier, making him shudder. The third hit shattered the indigo sphere, and the fourth hit knocked him flying. He hit the handrail hard, the impact carrying his body up and over the edge.

Shock and horror replaced the anger on the girl's face. She really was just a cadet after all, not one of Alphine's cohorts. Takamachi sprang for him, diving, and caught his wrist before he could fall.

The Riptide roared by, the cars turned ninety degrees so that the riders' heads pointed towards the interior of the structure. If they looked "up" as they went by they'd be staring at Avalon and Takamachi.

"Surrender now," she told him. "I'm taking you in."

"Surrender?"

"You're under arrest," she said, redundantly.

Avalon looked up at her, the seconds ticking by as if thinking it over.

Then he smiled.

"I don't think so."

He unleashed the combination of spells that he'd been building while hanging there.

**"Burst Shot."**

The catwalk was ripped apart by the blast, sending them both tumbling free.

**"Chain Bind."**

Coils snapped into place around the blonde.

**"Aero Fin."**

His downward movement was suddenly arrested, and he rammed the bayonet blade hard against the falling girl's back. Lightning sparked and she screamed as her jacket was shredded and blood spurted from rents in the skin beneath the bodysuit.

**"Impact Shot."**

The blast hammered into the girl's back. The spell wasn't one of Avalon's favorites because it was a non-lethal blow, designed to knock aside enemy targets who got too close or otherwise obstructed his path, but in this case it sent Takamachi blasting downwards. Unable to call on her own flight magic due to the binds, the blast and simple gravity drove her down where she slammed into a stanchion on the way to where she crashed very hard and very firmly into the ground.

Amateur hour was over. He had a brother to avenge.


	4. Chapter 4

Lutecia needed information. More than that, she needed time—time to plan, time to maneuver, time to concoct an escape strategy. The sniper had only been the first stage of the attack on her. If he succeeded, well enough. The sniper's round had been a lethal spell and it would have shattered her skull had she not been hugging Vivio when he fired. But that was only the first step. At least two more people were moving in on the ground. How many more were there? How many layers to the trap?

Under the circumstances, mobility was key. As a summoner, she could call on allies of her own, be a one-woman army, but she needed time to cast those summons. If she could get to cover...

Left and right were out. Back into the Mirage Hall wasn't necessarily possible, and even if it was, it was a different kind of trap. So forward, then, into the crowd, using the chaos _they'd_ created to _her_ advantage. She joined the surge of people trying to get away from the area where death had rained down, her first few steps shaky but adrenaline making later ones more sure. She melded with the panicked mass, moving out towards the park.

~X X X~

"R2. I've lost her."

"R3. Same here."

"I'm tracking," Windom said, scanning the security camera feed. At ground level, Altima and Vespa were more often than not blocked from their quarry by people, and she'd naturally seek that protection. To the park security cameras, though, Alphine was much more easily located, a blotch of black and purple amid other colors. "R2, adjust to ten o'clock. R3, to one o'clock. The crowd's starting to thin out about fifty yards from you when they split up at the intersection."

"Copy that, R4."

~X X X~

Lutecia reached an intersection, a kind of little plaza at a spouting fountain where the paths to various attractions met and divided. She took the second from her right, the one that headed back the way they'd originally come to the Mirage Hall. That was the direction Vivio had flown off towards the sniper, and instinct took her that way before she had a chance to think it through.

Logic told her belatedly that the better course of action would be to shake off her own pursuers first, rather than bringing her battle to Vivio's, but her reflex had been to get to the younger girl and protect her. This wasn't her fight, not even if she'd been a full-fledged mage soldier instead of just a cadet. It was Shadow business, covert operations that didn't respect laws or honor or decency, and it had no place in Vivio's world. Lutecia's head throbbed as she tried to sort out tactical considerations from her emotions. With luck the followers would split up, cover different possibilities for where she'd gone.

~X X X~

"R4. She's heading towards the Riptide. Third route from your left."

"R3. I see her!"

"R2. Same here."

"Then take her."

~X X X~

She hadn't lost them, Lutecia realized with a glance back. The man and the woman both were still behind her, and they were still close. As they broke into a run, their outfits shifted, ordinary clothing turning into form-fitting bodysuits in mottled black and gray that would have served as camouflage in the night.

_It's too overt_, she realized. Marine Garden had security camera, and the two hunters were showing their faces. Understanding came instantly—they had control of the cameras; that was how they were tracking her. They could afford to be overt because there'd be no video record, only the notoriously unreliable accounts of eyewitnesses.

The male pursuer raised his Device, and a defensive spell was on Lutecia's lips in response, when the confrontation was delayed.

"You two! Hold it!"

It was two of the park's security guards, ANTs in hand and leveled at the pursuers. They didn't know exactly what was going on, but armed mages of no obvious affiliation were a definite trouble sign.

**"Sweeping Fire."**

It was the woman who reacted at once and with violence, a charge of russet magic spitting from the tip of her Device and bursting in front of the guards. It knocked them sprawling, and one went down and out at once, but the second did not. Perhaps he was a low-ranking mage, or perhaps the security uniforms offered some barrier protection. For whatever reason, he was able to raise his ANT and fire from his prone position. The single shot was well-aimed, but the woman simply blocked it with a shield. Her male partner blasted the guard with ice magic, frozen spears that punched through the secman in an example of savage overkill.

The sacrifice, though, had bought Lutecia the time she needed. Four-pointed runes, the Belkan variant of a summoning circle, shimmered in midair and insects emerged from them. There were a dozen or so small ones, about the length of a finger, like wasps, but there was also one who was much larger, shaped like a tall man and whose chitinous exoskeleton made him look like a human soldier in greenish-gray medieval armor. Her favorite summon, Garyuu, who was almost more like a familiar to her, even a friend, than a mere creature.

"Merge with the cameras and cut off their signal," she ordered the wasps. One of their primary abilities was the way they could control machinery and computers, even low-grade Ais. Since the enemy was using the park's security system to track her, she'd deny them that advantage. The wasps buzzed off to carry out their tasks, and she prepared for the next step.

Then, flashes of light caught her attention. She turned towards the Riptide, and saw once, twice another black-clad man—the sniper?—lashing into Vivio, sending her cannoning into the ground.

"Vivio!" she screamed. _Was she all right?_ As the park guard had learned, these killers were cutting down anyone in their way. How much more willing to kill, then, would they be for their target's girlfriend?

The two pursuers were firing on her, now; she raised a _Panzerschild_ and deflected their spells.

_You will _not_ hurt Vivio to get to me_._ Not now. Not ever._

"Garyuu, take those two _down!_" she snapped, and the insect knight launched himself at the two pursuing mages.

As for the other one, she was going to handle him herself. He'd been the one to hurt Vivio; she _needed_ to settle it with her own hands.

~X X X~

"R4 to R1, she's coming your way. She sent a summon after R2 and R3. I think you pissed her off."

"Where is she?"

"She's heading up—_damn!_"

"What is it?"

"I just lost the feed off about a dozen cameras." Windom cursed again, looking up at the static-filled screens. His fingers flew over the keyboard, trying to reconnect. "I can't get them back. Either she's taken them out or she's subverted the system."

_Her summons_, Windom thought. It had been the same way on the Steuben extraction. They'd paid a small fortune for a series of system passcodes for the building operations and security controls, only to just lose everything at once. The Raptors had thought that Alphine had simply had the support of a Shadow computer specialist; the government's black-ops section could afford top-level skill in that area, but it looked as if Alphine herself was the one who'd done it, her technomancy literal rather than figurative.

That had been the moment when that job had started going off the rails, to end eventually in a botched contract and the death of Dan Avalon. The Raptors' then-leader had been the only one to make contact with Dr. Steuben's assassin, and had ended up dead while his backup had floundered, their communications down and trapped by security in several other parts of the building. This operation might have been beneath the morning sun instead of a corporate office complex at night, but it was starting to break down in exactly the same fashion.

~X X X~

Jim Avalon had made the connection between the past and present as fast or even faster than Windom had. How could he not? Every moment of the Steuben extraction was written in his mind as if branded there. He'd called in favors, laid out bribes, pushed informants until they broke, and all to one end: to identify the assassin who'd killed his brother in the course of erasing Dr. Steuben.

He'd been taken aback, at first, to learn that it hadn't been a freelancer, not even someone working for a corporation or a local government, but an agent of the TSAB's own black-ops division. But that didn't change his mind about what he intended to do. And even if things were starting to go wrong, Avalon still couldn't criticize too much. He'd hurt her with his first shot. She'd sent her prime fighting summon off after Vespa and Altima. He knew that she had S-rank summons, but couldn't use them in Marine Garden without risking dozens of civilian casualties and blowing her cover wide open. And she was coming right for him.

Avalon slotted a cartridge, ready to load it for when he needed it, and arrowed down towards the summoner. Let the girlfriend be dead or alive; she was only a bit player in the drama. _This_ was the encounter that mattered.

~X X X~

He came down on her like the wrath of God, not some kindly Deity but a god of vengeance from the old days. She responded, lashing out with shooting magic, multiple projectiles that arced upwards, tracking his position no matter how he weaved and dodged in the air and impacting one after another with savage force against his barrier. Lutecia wasn't a bombardment mage, but Asclepius's mana boosting gave her the power of one even if she'd never have one's ease and facility with direct combat.

Her opponent, though, _was_ a shooting mage. Less powerful than she was, yes, but better-capable than she at this kind of fighting—and he had the advantage of mobility.

And she was hurt.

Lutecia's head pulsed with savage pain as shots peppered the path around her, hammering at her shield. Her vision blurred again each time the surge of magic meeting magic went through her. Hate was in the other man's eyes, hate and a kind of lethal, unholy joy at being able to _act_ on that hate.

"You killed my brother, you damned Shadow _bitch_!" he roared at her, rushing in, the bayonet-like spike gleaming at the end of his Device. Lutecia got a shield up in time, fighting to hold it, and it stopped his rush.

"Load cartridge!" he ordered, while still driving against the shield.

Lutecia had a bad idea what was coming, quickly preparing her own countermove.

**"Break Shot."**

Indigo fire exploded from the weapon's tip, an extra surge designed as a shieldbreaker, but Lutecia had already dropped the shield, pivoting aside, letting force and momentum carry the sniper through where she'd been and leaving him off-balance against a shot in the back.

~X X X~

Vivio's entire body hurt.

The raw power of her Barrier Jacket was as good as anyone she knew, even her mother, which was a good thing, because it had had to absorb hit after hit that she shouldn't have had to suffer. Slowly, achingly, she pushed herself out of the web of the shattered flagstones of the Marine Garden path.

_Does he think he killed me?_ she thought, confused as to why the sniper hadn't followed up with further attacks. Vivio looked around and saw, shocked, that he'd flown off and was going after Lutecia again! The exchange of magic between the fighters filled the air like a fireworks display.

She needed a way to end this, and quickly! Cia was already hurt; who knew how long she could hold up? Just standing up, let alone fighting, was more than Vivio had been expecting her to be capable of.

The problem was, Vivio hadn't doing very well. She'd landed a couple of solid hits, but those had been more about luck than skill: she'd simply hit him with more raw power than he could handle. Whenever it came down to actual combat, he outfought and outplanned her, chaining spells together to keep her off-balance. The way her instructors did. The way _she'd_ done before...in practice. Only this wasn't practice, and she'd been slow and clumsy instead.

_All right, then. We go with what worked._

"Burning Glory, switch to Saint Mode."

**"Yes, mistress. Barrier Jacket: Saint Mode!"**

Superficially, Saint Mode looked like a negative image of Royal Mode: the bodysuit became silvery-white, the short jacket blue, and the gauntlets vanished entirely. She'd based it on her Fate-mama's Sonic Form, reducing her Barrier Jacket's defense to gain power in other areas. Only where Sonic Form added to Fate's speed and the power of her melee attacks with her Device, Saint Mode added to Vivio's bombardment magic.

"Kreuz Form!"

Burning Glory shifted back to the cross-tipped rod.

"We may only get one shot at this, so let's make it count."

**"Ready to go, mistress!"**

The Belkan spell-rune blazed up beneath her feet as Burning Glory loaded the last two cartridges in the cylinder.

"Target Bind!"

~X X X~

Avalon cursed under his breath as he went hurtling forward, the force of his Break Shot wasted as Lutecia pulled the shield out from under him. He fought to turn, _knowing_ that he was too slow, _knowing_ that he was about to get hit and hard.

Except that he didn't.

_She_ was the one who was too slow, the blood smearing her face mute testimony to the reason why, and she couldn't ready and cast her spell in time. He whipped Diving Raptor's bayonet into her, knocking Alphine stumbling off-balance.

**"Impact Shot."**

The blast sent her flying, bouncing across the ornamental flagstones of the path and crashing into a souvenir stand. Plush toys and T-shirts rained down around her. Avalon landed to brace himself, then snapped off a binding spell while Alphine was still down. This time it was different. He hadn't been able to chain Takamachi long enough to load and fire one of his major spells, but the binds were holding on Alphine. He slipped another cartridge into Diving Raptor, and a rune lit up beneath his feet.

Only it wasn't his indigo-blue, but a shimmering rainbow of colors. And the rune wasn't a Mid-style circle, but the triangular Belkan symbol.

Streaks of rainbow light streamed towards him out of the air. They seemed to plunge into his chest, not hurting him but not stopping, either, building and building in a swelling sphere centered on his Linker Core.

_This...this is high-compression magic!_ Avalon realized. The mana released by the fights that saturated the local atmosphere was being gathered around _him_. Desperately, he looked around, sure from the color that Takamachi was the one responsible. He saw her at once, ablaze with magic, her cross-tipped staff raised above her head, crackling with energy. He tried to fight his way free of the gathering magic, but it clung fast, almost like some kind of binding spell. The only other option seemed to be to take down the caster before she could _use_ that magic, so he fired off a Rapid Shot in her direction.

~X X X~

_"Thy sins hath found thee out._

_"Thine hour is at hand._

_"Thou hast sown the wind._

_"Thy harvest now is nigh."_

Power sang through Vivio as she recited the incantation. She could feel the way it was building up, how it poured into the collection sphere she kept leashed by her will.

_"For thy transgressions_

_"My hand hath turned against thee."_

She felt the impacts jolt against her, one after another, and she almost lost it, but she fought down the pain and kept the mana compression under control. She couldn't afford to lose it now, for Lutecia's sake!

_"Outcast forevermore,_

_"My wrath 'pon thee descends."_

Her eyes snapped open.

_"Starlight—"_

Burning Glory's tip swung towards the sniper like a compass needle seeking north.

_"JUDGMENT!"_

~X X X~

The rainbow globe surged to three times its size, engulfing the sniper. A deafening roar exploded through the park, and the wind whipped at Lutecia's hair and clothes, but the blast itself was all but entirely confined within the sphere. The spell raged on for nearly thirty seconds before it dissipated. The sniper's Barrier Jacket had not stood up to Vivio's spell, a point made obvious by the fact neither it nor any other stitch of clothing was left on his body. He was spared any embarrassment, though, because one had to be conscious to be aware of one's humiliation and he wouldn't be coming around for a good six to eight hours. His Device had been shattered; his naked body was the only thing that dropped into the neat little divot cut into the ground by the lower edge of the blast sphere.

Vivio had dropped to her hands and knees in the immediate aftermath of the spell, but had pushed herself up and was running towards her girlfriend. Lutecia didn't have much time.

"Asclepius, open a link to headquarters, secure communications. Alphine, Agent Lutecia, verify."

Less than two seconds passed before the screen opened.

"Agent Alphine, you're a mess," was the desk agent's pithy reaction.

"Yeah, I know. I need a cleaning crew out to the Marine Garden amusement park in Harbor City. A strike team jumped me."

"Will do. Local involvement?"

"None yet. They jammed communications from park security."

"Good. Details?"

"Sorry; I have to cut you short. Civilian." She cut the link as Vivio reached her.

"Cia! Are you all right?"

The summoner nodded. She shouldn't have; it sent a surge of pain through her head.

"Um...mostly?"

"Why didn't you wait? You could have been killed, fighting that guy!"

"He had friends. They came after me when you flew off."

Vivio gave a little gasp and Lutecia winced. She'd phrased it almost like an accusation and she hadn't meant to do that. At once, she tried to soften the blow.

"After I dealt with the,, I had to get to you, to help—and I saw you fall." She smiled wanly; she was exhausted, the ebb of the adrenaline rush leaving behind the effects of the battering of her fight with the sniper and the magical exertion, all coming on top of her original injury. Blood was making her left eye stick shut. "I had to get to you, then, and stop him from hurting you."

"But Cia, I was trying to protect _you_!"

"Doesn't matter." She was going to shake her head, but stopped herself, remembering the nod. "I love you." Her vision was going gray around the edges, but she forced herself to keep on. For some reason it felt vitally important to her to say the words, and to say them _now_, not later. "I don't ever want...to be the reason...that you're hurt."

And with it said, she let the silence and darkness take her for a time, cradled as she was in the one place she felt safe enough to let herself go.


	5. Chapter 5

Hospitals were scary places.

Yes, Vivio knew that Lutecia's injuries weren't life-threatening. The primary reason that she needed medical treatment was to deal with the concussion, to correct the injuries she'd suffered so that there wouldn't be any long-term effects. Magical healing technology was needed for that, in the controlled conditions of a hospital setting.

It didn't matter. It was still scary. Doctors and nurses milling about in their crisp white coats and uniforms, worried faces every so often breaking through the controlled expressions of the medical profession. Families, loved ones in the waiting rooms and the visiting areas, many of them fearful that _their_ news would be all bad. Despite the fact that this place was dedicated to the battle against death and disease, in essence a fortress of men and women fighting those enemies as hard as any mage-soldier fought crime and violence, the atmosphere that pervaded everywhere was one of pain and fear. It _infected_ Vivio, making her worry about her girlfriend when there was no real reason to do so.

She probably ought to have been more worried about herself.

Takamachi Nanoha had shown up within an hour of Vivio's call. Vivio had only called her to report their change in plans, but in classic worried-mother fashion Nanoha had insisted on coming in person—and gotten there fast enough that Vivio suspected she'd received permission for personal flight instead of taking ordinary transport. She'd listened patiently as Vivio spilled out the whole story, offering hugs when the aftereffects of the girl's first real battle had threatened to spill over into hysterics, but the frowns that kept sneaking through now and again told her daughter that something was wrong.

"Nanoha-mama? What is it? Did I do something wrong?"

Nanoha glanced around the small waiting room. They were alone but for a young man seated at the far side of the room, a cup of coffee cradled between his hands, and the man's child, who looked to be about five and was engrossed in a video game. The man was out of earshot of low speaking voices and beyond that was clearly too caught up in his own worries to care overmuch. Nanoha never believed in publicly humiliating her daughter with a lecture better kept private, which made her checking the room a warning sign for that daughter.

"You're mad at me, aren't you?" Vivio concluded.

Nanoha shook her head, smiling gamely.

"No, not mad. Just a little disappointed, that's all."

That was almost worse. _Mad_ tended to be a personal or philosophical debate—something that pushed Nanoha's emotional buttons. _Disappointment_ meant the failure to live up to some standard that was so firmly established that there was nothing to fight over, like when Vivio had been twelve and she and Rio had gone to the movies and forgotten to pick up Fate-mama's dress uniform at the cleaners when she needed it for a reception that night.

"What did I do?"

"Well, I know that this is the first time that you've been in a real battle, not a training exam or a cadet mission, and that you were very emotional because you wanted to protect your girlfriend, but you made a lot of tactical mistakes that you were very lucky didn't turn out very badly for you and for Lutecia-chan, too."

Vivio blinked in surprise. She hadn't been quite sure _why_ Nanoha was upset with her, but she hadn't expected that!

"Wait, Mama, are you saying that you're disappointed in me because of my performance in the battle?"

Nanoha nodded.

"Yes, exactly. You certainly didn't do anything wrong as a daughter." She actually looked a little confused, as if she couldn't imagine how anyone could thing it was something else that could have bothered her.

Vivio swallowed. That made things a _little_ easier to take.

"All right, Nanoha-mama. What did I do wrong?"

"Now remember, I'm just going off the way you told me the story, so there may be details I'm not quite right about. Actually, if you'll have Burning Glory copy a record of the battle to Raising Heart, I can break things down more specifically."

Vivio sighed.

"I don't think I'm going to like hearing it much, but I do want to improve any way I can. I guess if the Bureau's top combat instructor is offering to audit my performance, I'd be foolish to refuse. Go ahead and transfer the data, Burning Glory."

**"Glad to help, mistress."**

"I'll look it over in detail later," Nanoha promised. "For now, though, I'll start with my initial impressions."

Vivio nodded, and Nanoha began.

"You made most of your mistakes right away when Lutecia was shot. Now, that's understandable—it was the first time since you were six that you'd come unexpectedly under enemy fire, and besides that your girlfriend had been hurt. That's scary and surprising both and it put you off-guard. Still, as a combat mage, those are exactly the kind of situations where you need to keep your head if you're going to be able to help people."

"Yes, Mama."

"In a situation like that, you have three basic objectives: protect yourself—including Lutecia-chan; 'yourself' means your team, not just you individually—against immediate threats, ascertain the situation, and report the attack. You ignored all three."

Her plain speaking made Vivio wince.

"You should have set up your Barrier Jacket at once, the instant you knew you were in a fire zone. There could have been a second shot, ground support, any number of hazards. You did the right thing by having Burning Glory trace the trajectory of the shot to locate the sniper, but you didn't finish the job by checking the rest of the area, but only assumed that there was a single enemy and went after him. You said that Lutecia-chan told you that there were others—what if she'd been too injured to defend herself?"

Vivio gasped, realizing just how badly she'd messed things up. If she'd—If Cia hadn't been—

_I could have lost her._

"You were very lucky things worked out as they did. Your reasoning—that the best way to protect Lutecia-chan was to fight the enemy—wasn't necessarily wrong, but what was wrong was that you did it without knowing the size, strength, or location of the enemy force. Most of all, you absolutely should have reported the incident, either to the local police or to the military, but in any case to someone who could have brought in support if you needed it in the fight, contained the area to prevent enemy escape, and gotten medical assistance to Lutecia-chan. Apparently, _she_ was the one who made the report, after the battle was over, and you can't rely on that kind of luck, not if it turns out that your injured allies need treatment as soon as possible."

"Yes, Mama," Vivio said, chastened. She'd had no idea just how badly she had performed, but she _should_ have. She'd been trained as a cadet, after all, and much of what Nanoha was saying were things her instructors had already taught her in class and on the training field in mock battle. She should know these things! And instead, because of her, Cia could have been killed. She could barely imagine a world without Cia in it, and it would have been her fault!

"Vivio," Nanoha said, her voice suddenly gentler than her matter-of-fact teaching tone. "Vivio, look at me."

She looked up. Through the tears that stung at her eyes, she could see that her mother had a kind smile on her face. Nanoha laid a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"This isn't something to cry or feel bad about, Vivio. It was your first time in battle, and you were forced to try and protect your girlfriend at the same time. It's only natural that your emotions would be overwhelming."

"But I did so _badly_, and I could have let Cia die!"

Nanoha shook her head.

"You didn't, though. Lutecia-chan is going to be fine. I was just as bad in my first fight, you know. I had to have Yuuno-kun tell me every move I needed to make, and Raising Heart had to help me actually do them, and I wasn't even trying to protect anyone at the time."

"Mama, you were only _nine_, and you didn't even know about magic!"

"Nine or ninety, it doesn't matter. Nobody is at ease in their first fight. You can ask Fate-chan or Chrono-kun or Lutecia-chan or Nove-san if you don't believe me."

Vivio sniffled.

"No, Mama, I believe you, only--"

"There aren't any 'if onlys,'" Nanoha told her firmly. "Next time, you'll remember the things that went wrong, and you'll learn from them and do better. It all turned out all right, so you can move forward without regrets." She pulled Vivio into a tight hug. "Understand, Vivio, honey?"

"Yes, Mama."

"Good, now where was I?"

"Um, that I didn't call for backup and report the incident?"

Nanoha nodded.

"That's right. Now, before we move on to your battle performance, let's talk about what you _should_ have done in those first few moments..."

~X X X~

"It was a lucky break that your date got all hotheaded and didn't report the fight to the police or the Enforcers," the doctor told Lutecia. She was a severe-faced but warm-voiced woman of fifty or so, who had bright green hair and wore spectacles with narrow oval lenses. She was also a fellow agent, who'd been able to be waiting at the hospital with the claim of being Lutecia's personal specialist by the time the summoner had arrived. "We were able to get our team in as first responders, instead of having to deal with the locals."

"Do you know who they were and why they were after me?"

Dr. Forte nodded.

"They were a team of mercenaries called the Black Raptors, specialists that hired out to corporate clients, underworld groups, local governments, and similar clients for black-ops work. All of them were A or AA-ranked mages, with a good reputation for skill and professionalism."

Lutecia nodded. It didn't hurt at all now; Dr. Forte actually was a skilled doctor and healing mage. The debriefing had taken considerably more time than the actual medical procedures, and the summoner hoped that Vivio wasn't getting too worried for her over the delay.

"I wasn't cleared to receive full details on the operation, but apparently you encountered them six months ago during a mission centered on a man named Steuben. It appears that you killed the leader of the Black Raptors, one Dan Avalon, at that time. Your sniper from today was his brother, Jim."

"So it was revenge for his brother's death?"

Dr. Forte made a face.

"Clearly, their professionalism was overstated."

Lutecia shook her head.

"No matter how cold you are, a loved one's life can always get to you."

"I've never been a field op," the doctor admitted, "so I don't know how I'd react."

"Believe me, it matters." She remembered the terror, the rage that had hit her when she'd watched Vivio plummeting to the ground, and how in the grip of that rage she had nearly ordered Garyuu to kill the two Raptors pursuing her instead of taking them down alive.

It was ironic, because it was her own _lack_ of ruthless lethality that had led to the situation. The Steuben job had been an assassination. He'd been a scientist dabbling in matters that were deemed too risky that let endure, banned bioweapons research that had set off a bidding war for his services. In one of life's little coincidences, the night she'd picked to infiltrate his corporate employer's lab and eliminate Dr. Steuben and his research was the same night a rival corporation had sent in a team to "extract"—what civilians would call "kidnap"—him. Lutecia had been forced to kill one of that team, who'd all but caught her in the act. The other team members hadn't had any proof of her involvement nor posed a threat to her escape, so she'd let them go.

She'd been roundly criticized for that decision by the supervisory agent acting as mission admin, but Lutecia had stuck to her guns. She accepted that sometimes her operation as a Shadow demanded the taking of human life, but unlike many of her co-workers she utterly refused to accept murder as "collateral damage."

It was days like today that made her question that resolve. Did that park guard have a family? A grief-wracked spouse? Children wondering why their father wouldn't come home? That was, ultimately, the entire reason _why_ she was willing to be what she was, because sometimes waiting for legal proof or adhering to standards of justice and decency meant that innocents died, and because she knew that she was capable of crossing those lines that the Takamachi Nanohas and Fate T. Harlaowns of the world could _not_ cross.

But not that line. Not to commit murder for the sake of expediency.

"What happened to the Raptors?" she asked, breaking the vicious circle of her thoughts by returning to facts.

"Cinnamon Altima, Willy Vespa, and Jim Avalon were taken into custody alive; they'll be interrogated for any useful information. Among other things, we're _very_ interested in finding out how they learned that we were responsible for the Steuben matter and that you were the agent in the field; there was a breach in security there that will have to be closed. Afterwards..." She shrugged. Lutecia knew what she meant; it was eminently obvious that the Black Raptors weren't going to stand trial when they had knowledge of NSIS operations and personnel.

"More killing in cold blood."

"It isn't your decision, or mine either for that matter. And they have dangerous knowledge about your identity and the service, as well as a murderous vendetta against you."

Dr. Forte had a point, Lutecia admitted to herself.

"There's a fourth member, Rollin Windom, who apparently had been responsible for taking over the security system. He bolted and evaded capture. If it means anything, he subdued two guards non-lethally when he did that, in contrast to the others."

"It does, actually," Lutecia told her.

Dr. Forte nodded, then, and closed out the screen displaying the case report.

"All right, then. We're done here, and I think you have somebody waiting for you."

"Thank you, Doctor."

They left the treatment room and went down the hall to the waiting area.

"But I thought that 'Maximum Power' was your personal motto, Nanoha-mama," Vivio was saying. Neither woman looked up; intent on their discussion, they hadn't seen Lutecia and Dr. Forte. "To go all-out, because if you don't give it your best, anything might go wrong, especially against an unknown enemy."

"That's true, but what I learned the hard way is that if you _always_ go all-out, pushing yourself to your limit, sooner or later you will crash, and find yourself without any energy left when you need it. That's what happened when I was eleven; I pushed myself and pushed myself until I was very nearly killed by an enemy that I should have had no trouble with, just because I had nothing left. Vita-chan saved my life then. Yes, you won the fight, but you were very nearly beaten by an inferior opponent because you were controlled by your emotions. If he had been just a bit stronger, you'd have lost. Plus, you'd used up all your cartridges and burned through the localized mana saturation with Starlight Judgment, so you couldn't repeat that fighting style if Lutecia-chan hadn't already beaten the sniper's backup mages."

Vivio sighed.

"I'm sorry, Mama."

Nanoha shook her head.

"Don't apologize, just take it as an opportunity to learn and improve. After all, Fate-chan, er, beat me like a drum in our first few fights, and that motivated me to train and improve so I could make her stop and talk with me."

"By knocking her unconscious?" Vivio knew the story, of course, plus she'd even seen the movie with Lutecia.

Nanoha grinned.

"Your Fate-mama is a stubborn person. You should have seen her during our wedding planning!"

"Funny; I find Fate-san to be the easygoing one of the two of you."

"Cia!" Vivio's face lit up at the sound of the summoner's voice. She all but bounced out of her seat and rushed over to her. Nanoha's eyebrow twitched at Lutecia's joke before she gave up and chuckled.

"I hope you didn't get too worried, waiting."

"Are you all right? Is there anything I can do?"

"She's fine," Dr. Forte cut in. "A couple of days of bed rest to recover from the lingering drain on her system from the healing magic, but that will be all. I'm sorry for the delay, but I insisted on running several extra tests just in case." Lutecia was impressed at the way concern and care had replaced cold efficiency on the woman's face as she dealt with her patient's waiting visitors.

"Really? You don't hurt at all?"

Lutecia shook her head.

"I'm really okay, Vivio."

"Thank goodness! I was...I was so scared that I'd messed up and gotten you really hurt," Vivio just blurted out in front of Nanoha and Dr. Forte. Shy and retiring she wasn't.

"Vivio, I was the _target_ of that attack. I'm the one who should be apologizing to you for dragging you into this!" _I don't know what I'd do without you. Just the thought of losing you terrifies me._

"But I—"

"It's—"

"How about this?" Nanoha suggested. "You could just be happy that you stood up for each other the way that people who care for each other are supposed to." Lutecia and Vivio just blinked at her. "What? I can give nice, motherly advice, too." Still no response. "Mou, Lutecia-chan I understand, but my own daughter?"

"Is it safe to laugh?" Lutecia asked Vivio.

"Oh, sure. Fate-mama does it all the time."

_Which may explain those halfway-across-the-universe deployments she goes on_, Lutecia thought, but didn't say. Instead, she looked at Vivio and said, "I'm sorry that our date got ruined."

"It didn't get ruined. Nanoha-mama is right. And I'm going to study hard so that next time you can count on my fighting skills, not just my feelings, to protect you properly."

"Next time?"

"Sure! In my family, a side-by-side battle against overwhelming odds qualifies as a romantic night on the town!" With that, she stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips to Lutecia's.

_You shouldn't worry, Vivio,_ Lutecia thought. _You already protect something a lot more important than just my life._

~X X X~

_A/N: For those still wondering about the Black Raptor names, while their last names are the usual random allotment of automobiles, their first names are all taken from the original cast of characters of _Mission: Impossible_, Jim Phelps, Rollin Hand, Cinnamon Carter, and Willy Armitage. The dead brother was named after Dan Briggs, who was the team leader for Season One before Phelps replaced him. Apologies to any Barney Collier fans out there, but he got left out because I didn't want to name a character Barney. Mostly it's a giant purple dinosaur imagery thing._

~X X X~

**Vivio's Magical Omake Theater!**

"So that's the full story, Zaffy," Vivio finished confessing the embarrassing details. "Do you think that you can help?"

Zafira looked at her thoughtfully, if a large blue wolf can be said to have such an expression.

"Hm, I agree that your battle performance was not ideal. But I think there is a training exercise that can assist." He shifted into human form and began to program the practice ground's settings. "Your objective will be to pursue and capture this target." A screen popped up, showing an image of a bright red orb. "It is programmed to have a randomized level of defensive barrier protection and damage absorption capacity, so that you cannot choose your strategy in multiple repetitions of the exercise based upon a known factor you would not have in real life."

Vivio nodded.

"In addition, there will be enemy support units." Standard gray attack drones were displayed. "If you are hit three times by them, the exercise ends. You may defeat them outright, block with defensive magic, or simply dodge attacks as you see fit; part of the exercise is to build your judgment when you have many options available. Finally, there are bystanders." These were represented by yellow drones. "Do not let them be injured by enemy fire or environmental damage."

"All right."

"Are you ready?"

"Mmn!"

"Begin exercise."

Vivio launched herself off in pursuit of the red drone, and Zafira turned back into wolf form, which was more comfortable for him. While he was watching the status of the practice run scroll by on the displays, a red-haired child in an instructor's uniform walked into the control booth.

"Oi, Zafira, I didn't expect to find you here," Vita greeted her fellow Wolkenritter.

"Vivio requested special training in light of her poor performance in a recent battle."

"Good for her. Nice to see her working on the problems instead of moping. So what have you got her doing?" She looked up at the screens.

"The urban chase-and-capture scenario Nanoha designed."

"Oh, yeah, that's a good one." Vita glanced at Zafira for a second, then back at the screens, and grinned. "Gotta admit, though, it's the first time I've seen a human fetching a ball for a dog."


End file.
